The Overlord of Waala Traditional Area, Naa Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo has appealed to President Akufo-Addo to listen to their long standing plea for the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) to be granted autonomy.
“The seeming delay in getting us the long deserving autonomous university only leaves us at the mercy of some authorities of the University’s Central Administration who are bent on rendering the Wa Campus poor of its programmes,” he said.
Naa Pelpuo made the plea when the President paid a courtesy call on him at his palace in Wa as part of his two-day tour of the Upper West Region.
According to the Wa-naa, some recent move by the authorities to continue to dismember the Wa Campus by transferring many of its programmes to Tamale nearly got the youth of the region onto the streets, but the regional minister intervened.
Naa Pelpuo also expressed worry that the conversion of the Wa Polytechnic into a Technical University still hanged in the balance.
He added that to add salt to injuries, the Rector of the Polytechnic had been in a protracted dispute with the Polytechnic Council, the general administration and the lecturers since his investiture earlier this year.
The Paramount Chief of the Waala Traditional Area appealed to president Akuffo Addo to intervene in this tussle to save the Polytechnic from imminent collapse”,.
President Akufo-Addo thanked the people of the region for the support and said his visit was to enable him to update himself with the concerns of the people in each region in order to guide the actions of his government.
Responding to the UDS Wa campus autonomy issue, President Akufo-Addo said the University was started during former President Kufuor’s era and that it would be good if granting of the autonomy also happened in his era.
On the Wa Polytechnic impasse, the President said he would surely do something about it through the Minister of Education.
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